


Jane's Addiction

by boundbyspells



Category: Deadwood
Genre: F/F, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-25
Updated: 2005-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boundbyspells/pseuds/boundbyspells





	Jane's Addiction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jae W.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jae+W.).



Jane was the victim of a beautiful dream. She could see that, now that her eyes were open. There were well-varnished pine boards above her head now, and swags of yellow--what the fuck was that stuff called?--satin or maybe silk, she couldn't tell the two apart when she was sober, and she was certainly not sober now. Or ever, anymore.

She raised her head slowly from a feather pillow--another part of the beautiful dream--trying to avoid having the world swim in and out of focus, which was the bane of being a drunk and certainly made it hard to be a good shot anymore. "Fraudulent," she muttered.

"What?"

Jane turned her head too quickly towards the studiedly melodious voice, and paid for it not with a swimming head but with a sharp stab of pain. "Fuck," she said, and held still.

"Jane, what's wrong? Is it your head?"

"I believe so," Jane said. "Some malignant fucking force has planted a fucking arrow inside my brainpan and it's trying to come out the hard way." She turned her head more slowly, and yes, there beside the bed sat Joanie Stubbs, cuter than a bug's ear, but not a bit beautiful to Jane's way of thinking. It was the nose; the nose belonged to a child, and turned the elegant sweep of Joanie's cheekbones and her lovely mouth into something less timeless, more vulnerable. Not that Jane minded; Jane was not one to consider appearance over a person's qualities.

There was the sound of a bottle being opened, and the glug of something liquid being poured into a glass, and Jane's hopes were rising by the minute. "You've got a hangover, Jane," Joanie said calmly, and swished around the corner of the bed towards Jane. Jane could feel the saliva filling her mouth in anticipation.

"Hair of the dog?" Jane asked, struggling to sit up. She couldn't quite get her arms underneath her to do so, and for too long a moment, she couldn't figure out why. It seemed like every time she pulled her hand beneath her body, it just didn't--pull.

"You fucking tied me to the bed," she said after failing to sit up for the third time."That is a very fucking dirty trick."

"Yes, I did," Joanie said, climbing carefully onto the bed.

"I have a tendancy to thrash about in my sleep and fall out on the floor on occasion, but I don't see that it's anybody's business but my own. I can take a fall from my fucking horse, I can take a fall from your bed, no matter how fucking high."

"I know," Joanie said. She had arranged herself so that Jane's head was cradled on her breasts, and the glass was moving into view. Jane couldn't guess the liquor by the color, but when the fuck had that ever mattered in recent years? She realized her lips were smacking in anticipation, and when the glass came to her lips, she drank greedily and had swallowed one big gulp before--

Jane spat the next gulp of the foul-tasting shit all over the bed.

"Fuck," Joanie said, still calm.

Jane opened her mouth to say something suitably foul, and Joanie's other hand came around and pinched Jane's nose shut.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Jane shouted, or tried to--it was definitely hard to sound commanding when one's nose was fucking _pinched closed_. Joanie started pouring liquid into Jane's mouth, and it got down into her throat, so the choice now was to swallow or drown. Jane swallowed, and Joanie tilted the glass further so Jane couldn't get ahead of the flood, and she had no choice--swallow, swallow, swallow. The liquid was running out of the corners of her mouth, pooling onto Joanie's sheets and Joanie's skirts, and the fucking bitch fucking deserved it, ambushing Jane like that.

She spat the last glug out onto the bed again for good measure, just to show how sincerely fucking displeased she was.

"Good girl, Jane," Joanie said, and took away the glass and got off the bed, and mopped up the mess they'd made together.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Hair of the dog."

"Like hell. That wasn't even rotgut."

"The way Doc Cochran and I figure it," Joanie said, taking a damp sponge to Jane's face and neck, "you been bit by a pretty damn big dog."

"What the fuck do you know about it?"

"I don't need anything but eyes to see what you're doing to yourself." Joanie traced her sponge around Jane's lips, then leaned forward and pressed her own lips there. Jane furrowed her brow and waited. Nothing. Just Joanie's lips, a pressure, and then they were gone. Joanie stood up.

"That's all I get?" Jane said. "No velvet tipping?"

Joanie regarded her with calm eyes. "Do you even know what that means, Jane?"

"I can cuss fluently in my native language, and the languages of a couple of natives," Jane said, pulling lightly against the... ropes? that bound her to the bed, testing their range (limited) and strength (pretty good). "It means slipping me your fucking tongue."

As soon as she said it, she felt... strange. Embarrassed. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been embarrassed about describing a sex act.

"No, Jane," Joanie said, and suddenly she was grinning. "The velvet in question is a bit lower."

Understanding flooded Jane, just as blood now flooded her face. She was blushing. "Fuck you," Jane said, and turned her face away. "I ain't never done that, so how was I to know?"

Joanie didn't really say anything, just busied herself up cleaning the room. Jane realized her headache was going away, and her head was getting a bit spinny. Not fall-down drunk spinny, but pleasant, problem-forgetting spinny.

"What was in that Cochran-made shit you tried to kill me with?" Jane asked.

"Don't know," Joanie answered. "But it's supposed to help you get off the drink without killing you."

"Right," Jane said. "Does it mean a damn thing to you that you're doing this against my fucking will?"

"Is it really against your will?"

"I am _tied_ to a fucking _bed_."

Joanie walked to the window. She twitched aside the edge of a curtain and stared out at the street, and Jane was right grateful she didn't pull back the drapes and flood the room with light. The headache had turned into something... worse.

"When you left Deadwood the last time," Joanie began, "what did you say to Charlie Utter?"

"I don't know, but if I said anything to that cocksucker, it probably had the word 'fuck' in it a hell of a lot."

"Jane, I wouldn't want to press on painful memories, but Charlie told me you said, and I quote: 'I won't be a drunk where Hickok's buried, and I can't stay sober.'"

"A fucking idealistic flight of fancy," Jane said. "Since I am back and I am not sober."

"I won't pretend to know what you feel," Joanie said, "If you won't pretend that the drink ain't killing you."

To this, Jane had no immediate or pithy answer.

Joanie turned, her face awash with compassion. "It's all right, Jane, you don't have to talk. In fact, maybe you shouldn't."

"I don't need you to fucking nursemaid me through this," Jane said, turning her head to avoid Joanie's face. The room blurred and swayed, and Jane fought to keep her eyes open. "You can tie me to a tree in the woods. That'd be just fine."

"Doc says you could die if you don't get nursed. I already told you that. Don't you remember?"

"Truthfully," Jane said, "There are just too fucking many birds in this room to hear myself think straight." And with that, her eyes rolled up and she passed out.

**

"Do we gotta keep her tied up like this the whole time?" Charlie asked, bending his hat brim back and forth between his hands. He stared at Jane like a man who'd lost his hope of God.

"Doc says, yeah, we do."

Charlie shook his head. "Won't she... won't her arms fall asleep or something?"

"She could get bedsores, so we have to turn her every once in a while."

Charlie turned his head slightly to look at Joanie, but she'd seen the movement and was staring studiously at Jane before he met her eyes. She didn't want him knowing she'd seen that look of vulnerability on his face.

"I hafta thank you for nursing her like this," Charlie said. "It can't have been an easy couple days, and knowing Jane, it ain't gonna get a fuck-lot easier."

Joanie tried to laugh, and failed. Her smile was untarnished, however; she always had her smile. "Don't even think about it. She nursed a dear friend of mine from the smallpox, and..."

Charlie bent the brim of the hat clean in half and started creasing it anxiously. His eyes had gone back to Jane's still form. Joanie put her hand on Charlie's arm.

"It's no bother," Joanie said, lying as earnestly as she could. "She's knocked out with Doc's drink most of the time, anyway." That was not true. Jane didn't take well to the Doc's concoctions, and she slept so poorly that Joanie felt she had to hold Jane down to keep the woman from injuring herself on her restraints.

"You're a good girl," Charlie said, covering Joanie's hand with his. She stared at it for a moment, thinking about how she looked at her own hand all day, every day and thought it was just the right size for doing everything that needed doing... And here was Charlie's hand, twice the size of hers, and somehow getting through life just the same as her own. "And a kind woman," Charlie added, taking his hand away after a few gentle pats.

They stood a moment together, watching Jane sleep. She was deep under for now; Doc had been by and reluctantly administered a dose of laudenaum. He said he wouldn't do it more than two or three times through this whole procedure, but Jane was liable to have some sort of seizure if she wasn't helped along proper.

"How long have you been in love with Jane?" Joanie found herself asking.

Charlie was silent for just a second, and then let loose with a big braying laugh. "I ain't in love with that woman," Charlie said. "Though you got it fucking right that I do fucking love her."

"Like a... sister, or a daughter?"

Charlie didn't look at Joanie, just kept staring at the woman tied to the bed. Joanie had cleaned her up and combed back her hair, and in just a few days out of the wind and sun, Jane's face had lost the chapped, dry look it always had. Charlie leaned over her and stirred her hair with a thick forefinger, then pulled back.

"I ain't gonna blame you if you think that a man can only love a woman if she's blood or she's fucking him," he said at last. "But I'd ask you to understand that I'm not an ordinary cocksucker."

"Fair enough," Joanie said. With his words, something inside of her--some complicated knot of jealousy and worry and fear--uncoiled. She found it soothing to talk to Charlie; even if he got mad at her, he wasn't going to raise his hand. "I'm sorry, Charlie, for not seeing that before."

And now Charlie was regarding her with his placid hound-dog's eyes. "Maybe I should be asking you the same question." Joanie felt her smile grow brittle. Charlie's next words hit her like glass shards. "How long have you been in love with Jane?"

Joanie closed her eyes against the sudden, vicious spinning of the world.

When she opened her eyes again, Charlie was still watching, and nothing had really changed. She smiled against the tears that had welled in her eyes, and said simply, "I couldn't even begin to guess."


End file.
